(Dobousek) "We looked in Connecticut, we looked
in Massachusetts, also up in Maine and New
Hampshire, but most of the time we came back to Vermont, for a
variety of reasons. Number one, there appears to be an adequate milk supply in Vermont. Number two,
Southern Vermont with
Interstate 91, is easy access to everywhere."

(Keese) Dobousek says the
company will process about 50 million pounds of milk a year, equivalent to the
milk produced by about 3,000 cows. They hope all of it will come from Vermont.

Commonwealth will produce yogurt
for store labels at first. But it plans to introduce its own yogurt brand
eventually. And the partners see the
made-in-Vermont label as an asset.

They also say Vermont was the most welcoming of the states they approached,
and easiest to work with.

Jeff Lewis is executive
Director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. He says the company will create between 25
and 40 new jobs and add $20 million to the town's grand list.

(Lewis) "We have worked very hard to leverage all the
possible benefits that exist in Vermont to smooth the way to make it possible
to accomplish what they want... all the stuff that Vermont has to ameliorate the
cost of starting a new business here have been deployed."

(Keese) The company received
almost $700,000 in Community Development Block grant money from the town.

It's also been approved for more
than a million dollars in Vermont Employment Growth Incentives. Once it's up
and running it's in line for federal tax credits for building in an
economically distressed part of town.

Commonwealth is also
partnering with Ehrmann AG, a German yogurt maker with more than a billion
dollars in sales in 40 European countries.

Dobousek says Ehrmann had
been looking for a foothold in the United States.

The venture still needs
approval under Act 250, Vermont's
development review law. But if all goes well, Dobousek says Commonwealth could
be making yogurt by December of next year.